


Beer, grief, and muscle memory

by Kit



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Friendship, Grief, M/M, memory triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1571786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit/pseuds/Kit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're a miracle worker, Steve." </p><p>Memory can sneak up on you. Even on the good days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beer, grief, and muscle memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [probablylostrightnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/probablylostrightnow/gifts).



Some days are perfect, even on the Alliance’s End of The World clock. Sometimes, you just woke up and felt like you’d swallowed brightness—or music, maybe; the best music you can think of—and it’s now shining through your skin.

Steve Cortez had been feeling it all week, and it hadn’t mattered whether he was elbow deep in wires or on comm and stopping Kanala from robbing them  _quite_ so blind, thanks all the same. Words came easy, hours went fast. And now, looking at Vega’s wide-eyed delight, he could only grin and accept that, yes, he was good.

“This is why they pay  _me_ all the credits,” he said, passing his friend the best lager he’d seen this side of Earth. James traced the lettering with a forefinger, all reverence. Steve smirked. “That, and I’m cheaper to maintain.”

Vega rolled his eyes. “I heard you talking to the Commander,” he said. “’I’ve got a knack for procurement, ma’am’, that’s what you said. This isn’t a  _knack,_ Estaban. Traynor has a knack for hangover cures and…crochet, or some shit. I have a knack for turning combat rations into actual food.  _This—”_ James held the bottle aloft. “This is art, man.”

“If you drop that, so help me—”

“Steve, you’re a miracle worker.”

 

> _Steve leaned into the hand at his cheek, half sure he would die of pride, just so long as he didn’t choke from laughing, first. Robert just kept_ staring _. And yeah, it’d been hard to organise. All Steve knew about guns could be found between the pages of his Alliance basic manuals. He knew nothing about the old ones, the earth antiques that were practically art history. Trying to learn enough from Robert so he could get the right piece without his catching on, had been slow work._
> 
> _But he’d had the year, and now he had to laugh, because Robert was_ beaming  _when he wasn’t staring, and then he was kissing Steve and the world had narrowed to shaking breath and the close of teeth around his lower lip and Steve’s hand splayed against his husband’s chest. The ridiculous, bright spark of joy he felt when he opened his eyes and saw that hand, and the wedding ring there, and knowing that he barely felt it now, warmed by his skin and left to settle there with every passing year._
> 
> “ _So,” he gasped, laughing again. “I don’t have to be jealous of a sidearm?”_
> 
> _Robert grinned. “Steve,” he said. “You’re a miracle worker.”_

 

“Estaban? You okay there?”

It wasn’t his fault. Steve knew this, shaking his head and trying for a smile as tightness creeped from his chest and into his throat, and he looked— _really looked_ —at the date on his comm screen. It was right there. Always had been. Bright, flickering as minutes dissolved, one into the next.

It was not James’s fault that Steve’s body had tricked him, years of using his procurement chains and knack for asking the right sorts of questions for finding just the right gift bleeding into this search for a friend. The wrong days and the wrong words and the wrong form of his name, all mixed in together, and turning into the new-old shock that it was his wedding anniversary, and Robert was still dead.

Steve managed that smile. “Enjoy that magic, Mr. Vega,” he said. “I…”

James looked at him. What he saw, Steve didn’t know, but the other man was quiet, and solid, and Steve Cortez was grateful for the brief press of a large hand on his shoulder, followed by a smart retreat.

Some days are perfect. And others.

Just.

 

Crash.


End file.
